


Let Me Down Slowly

by Cheyalinn_of_Tafth



Series: Terrible Things [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Aromantic Kozume Kenma, Blood, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, POV Kuroo Tetsurou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:01:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27397624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheyalinn_of_Tafth/pseuds/Cheyalinn_of_Tafth
Summary: Kuroo wakes up in the middle of the night because of the pain in his throat. Kenma was too invested in his streaming, so Kuroo was left there, their bedroom cold, as he just coughed up a Firewheel flower petal from his lungs.
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Series: Terrible Things [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993660
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42
Collections: Haikyuu Angst Week 2020





	Let Me Down Slowly

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys, cheya again here!! thank you so much for reading!! i hope you like this pain!!
> 
> Haikyuu!! Angst Week 2020 Day 5.  
> Realizations. Hanahaki/star disease. Did you ever love me?
> 
> Inspired by ["Let Me Down Slowly"](https://open.spotify.com/track/2qxmye6gAegTMjLKEBoR3d?si=Ee6rahXmRrqxUsGq0CzB6w) by Alec Benjamin.

Kuroo woke up because he could not breathe.

It was a loud, painful sound, what tore from his chest as he sat up. He was on their bed. His head was aching, and he needed to breathe. He gasped for air, trying to clear the pathway of his throat. It felt clogged like he was choking, and it was painful.

He coughed hard, and his throat felt raw in an instant. It made him teary-eyed, his vision blurry at best as he tried to look at his surroundings in the dark. Kuroo turned to his side and coughed by the side of the bed, trying to get whatever that was clogging his airway. It was painful like a claw had been raked down his neck.

He continued to cough, as he tried to push out what clogged his throat, he threw up something bland and dry. Something foreign, but Kuroo could not see what he just threw up on the side of the bed.

But he could breathe now and he spent moments just there, breathing, waiting for his body to calm down. He wiped at his eyes and checked the clock. It was almost four in the morning.

Kuroo wanted to call on Kenma, but it was plain and obvious by the half-occupied king-sized bed that he was still streaming his game. He could not probably impose, and this was just probably something he caught. He would have to up his multivitamins come to breakfast.

But his throat has gone itchy. He decided to grab his phone, opened its flashlight, and focused the light on the floor where he puked his lungs out.

And found a wet petal. It was red, yet the tip of it was yellow.

Kuroo frowned. How would a petal find its way lodged in his throat? Unless... He looked at the flower petal closely. It looked like it was some variant of a sunflower, most likely a Firewheel. _Gaillardia pulchella_.

Suddenly, he figured out what happened, and he felt his chest tighten and his chest fell down to his stomach, and his stomach turned upside down. He closed his eyes. He could not believe this was something that had the possibility of happening to him, of all people.

Kuroo has hanahaki, and he knows who it was for, yet the questions in his head grew exponentially by the minute. He has hanahaki and what kind of love was this now, that there was a whole plant growing and festering and killing him from the inside?

* * *

Two weeks passed and Kuroo could not find the perfect time to tell Kenma. How could he?

How can someone just approach their childhood friend, someone they dated since high school, and straight-up tell him, “Oh, so you don’t love me anymore huh? Nice. Thanks for your time.”

For all the words Kuroo knew, this one he could not voice out without coughing up a few petals here and there. He could not just approach his long-time boyfriend and just ask him what happened to them, and what was already happening to them, or why did Kenma suddenly... stopped loving him, just like that.

Right? As if Kuroo could love somebody else. There was literally no one in this world for whom his heart resides. He decided to make and build a home with Kenma, loved him, cared for him, made sure he was in a happy disposition, gave him abundant support, and tried to give him as much as he possibly could.

And yet...

Kuroo watched Kenma update his console as he made afternoon snacks for both of them. It was a lazy Sunday for them both, and the weather had been rainy all day, and Kuroo only had gone three coughing trips to the bathroom. Kenma only looked at him with concern, because this was Kuroo’s house too, and he knows where the cough drops and the rest of their medicine were.

He just gave Kenma a smile and told him he would take one later, and that it must be something he caught as he kept on talking to too many people because of the nature of his job. Kenma only responded that he should drink vitamins and went back to his game.

It was usual, for both of them, but why... and how... this still happened? What was wrong? Where did Kuroo make a mistake? Did he... do something to cause this?

As he flipped the hashbrowns, he looked over at Kenma, who, weirdly enough, was looking at him curiously. His eyes were expectant.

“What, kitten?” Kuroo asked, trying to be as cheery as he can.

‘You looked like you were mourning the potatoes that died for your hashbrowns, Tetsurou.”

“Oh? Really?”

Kenma only raised an eyebrow in response. Kuroo chuckled, “You know me too much, kitten. More than I know things about you, right? It really seems like that... most of the time now than before. I used to know how you feel when you feel them too.”

“What are you saying? Maybe you shouldn’t have skipped on the coffee, Tetsurou.” Kenma’s eyes went back to the screen, this toes wiggling as he was sitting on the bean bags on the floor of their living room. “Just finish cooking and eat so you wouldn’t have to say things like that.”

“Ah. Right. Maybe I was just hungry, no?”

“Hmm.”

And the conversation died right there and Kuroo does not feel like eating any longer. As he finished the rest of the hashbrowns, he vaguely wondered if there was someone else Kenma looked at more than he looks at Kuroo now.

* * *

Kuroo got away with it for a month until the bleeding started to accompany the flurry of petals that he coughs out every night.

A month. It was all he had. It was all this damned flower, this damned... love, gave him. It was a limited time, and it was wasted with Kuroo looking at Kenma and Kenma frowning at his gazes as if he found it weird. That he found Kuroo acting silent weird, and yet never pressed it.

It felt like a truce, somehow, yet there was nothing to set to a truce. He should have known, with the intensity of what Kuroo feels, that it would get to this point as early as just a month and a couple of weeks of coughing petals in the sink in the middle of Kenma’s midnight streamings. His coworkers had commented on how he looked tired all the time, and Kuroo barely managed to deflect them.

At least he had something to deflect with them. With Kenma, there was barely anything. It had gotten too cold between the two of them and Kuroo was almost sure that it was Kenma.

It was Kenma who fell out of love. It was Kuroo who was left with unrequited love, even after years upon years of already living together.

Kuroo should have known that even their relationship could still be as unstable as receiving in volleyball. You can receive perfectly this time, and then the next few times would be decent, but you could still miss, and you could still receive it too far, too short, or not at all. A good receive would not guarantee that the next would be as perfect.

Kuroo looked at Kenma, and they were now on the respective sides of their shared bed. He just finished his stream earlier tonight for some reason and Kuroo just finished cleaning up his nightly flowery mess in the bathroom. The lights were off and the remaining brightness in the room was from Kenma’s smartphone as he answered comments on his streaming videos.

“Tetsurou, I can hear you sighing from here.”

Kuroo laughed, “Oh. Sorry.”

Kenma looked at him. Kuroo looked back, yet the light from the screen only painted Kenma’s face half-light. And he looked... exasperated. As if he was tired of Kuroo acting like this.

Maybe it was true, but he knows that he was just tired of Kuroo in general. His chest ached, and he started to feel the already familiar clogging up in his throat.

“Say, Kenma. Wanna go on a trip with me? It has been... tiring. I think. Stress is not going to leave us both if we don’t choose to let it go, yanno? It’ll be fun. We can use our yacht. Just a weekend trip so it wouldn't’ impede with work.”

“Okay.”  
  


“Now, I think you think that you’re too busy with this but... Wait, what?”

“I said that it’s fine, Tetsurou. We can take that trip this weekend if you want.”

“Oh.”

“What now?”

“Nothing, kitten. I just... You know how much I love you, right?”

Kenma’s smartphone screen was turned off so suddenly, plunging the room into absolute darkness without the small light. “I know, Tetsu. Let’s just sleep. You work early later and it’s already past three in the morning.”

“Alright. Good night, kitten. I love you so much.”

“I know, Tetsu.”

* * *

Kuroo almost expected this, and he could not determine how he should feel that he was right about it all. That he stood here, looking at the waters, trying to calm himself after coughing up petals at the side of the yacht, with Kenma inside doing work.

It was getting dark. It was Saturday. It meant he only has tomorrow to tell him or to try to break the truth to him. Kuroo was, unfortunately, running out of time, as he wiped the blood that dripped on his chin with a handkerchief he had to dispose of later.

He continued to look out to the vast sea. There was the hum of the engine, the crashing of the water against the propellers, but there was nothing else. It was getting colder as the sun began to set, and Kuroo wanted to know. He ached to know. It now goes beyond the question of knowing what happened, but... more of a question of how would he bring things back to normal?

What could he do to stay beside Kenma, when he was already dying out of the love that grew cold, out of the love that was abandoned?

When he went back inside the cabin, Kenma was still playing. Kuroo’s sweat was cold, and his palms grew clammy, and his head has become a little too lightheaded. This was bad, his throat clogging up and ready to burst. If he could perhaps run back outside or to the other side of the yacht, maybe he can still save himself.

But he was frozen on the spot, his hand barely clutching the doorframe, as he coughed out petals. A lot of them, wet and horribly bloodied, dropped on the floor.

Kuroo’s eyes flooded with tears. Kenma closed his laptop immediately and stood up in horror. Kuroo tried to smile at him as he coughed again, puking blood and petals and half-broken stems. This was poison but Kenma’s horrified face was still more painful than anything else.

As he coughing stopped, as he noticed that blood was literally splattered everywhere and he needed to clean it up as soon as he could, Kenma’s face went from horrified to angry.

“So, this was what you have been trying to keep from me?”

“Kenma, I...”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Tetsurou? You have hanahaki. Is this something you treat lightly?”

“I never treated this lightly, Kenma! I never...” Kuroo swallowed the remaining blood and spit as he winced with the metallic taste accompanied by the bitter taste of stems and petals on his tongue. “Not once I treated this lightly, Kenma. I tried to suppress it for a month! I tried to tell you but... but you have been so cold to me. You have been...”

“Tetsu...”

“I don’t know what happened to us, Kenma. I never even loved anyone but you. If I had, and got turned down, you would have been coughing up your own petals right about now! If you loved me and I didn’t... but I was the one with a damned plant in my lungs, Kenma! So, before you get angry, I just... want to know... what happened.”

Kenma’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth and then closed it again. He looked away from Kuroo, and it hurt.

“Kenma. Did you ever love me?”

“Of course I did. We’ve been together for years!”

“But what changed? Something changed... Kenma. I love you still, but you... But you...”

Kenma’s face crumpled, “I couldn’t. Not anymore. I don’t know why. I still want you beside me, Kuroo. You know I am not the best when it comes to communicating what I really feel, but... I just... no longer...”

“Then, do you have someone you love better now?”

“No!” Kenma stepped forward, trying to cross the distance between them but could not quite finish removing the space that remained. “Of course not! I haven’t loved anybody else! I never loved someone as much as I... have loved you, Kuroo.”

“Then how was this possible?”

“Because I no longer love! I don’t know! I just... don’t feel romantic feelings for anymore, not anymore. I just... I feel like I have failed somehow, Kuroo. Like I failed you because I don’t love you as you need me to anymore.”

“Kenma.”

“I am...” Kenma started, keeping his sobs down but failed. “I am! So sorry... Kuroo. I don’t know! I loved you and it was everything I ever have, you were everything I ever had! But somehow still, I... I could no longer love the love you need me to love you. I just don’t!”

“Kenma, I...”

He continued to sob, “And I don’t know why you have to be the one to suffer for it! When, clearly, it was me! It was me who failed. It was me who lacks emotion. It was me who could no longer love the way... This isn’t fair. I am sorry, Kuroo. How could I let this happen...? I am so... so fucking sorry because I became like this. Something must have gone wrong with me.”

“Kenma. It’s fine. You’re valid. It’s okay to not feel romantic love, Kenma. It’s okay to realize it late. It’s okay to be what you really are. There’s nothing... absolutely nothing, wrong with you. You’re still my kitten. You’re still amazing. You’re still you.”

“But you’re dying, Kuroo! And it’s all my fault!”

Kuroo wanted to move forward. He wanted to close the gap and wrap his arms around Kenma but he could not quite figure out how. “It’s not your fault.”

“How is it not?”

“I’m not going to leave your side, you know.”

“But I don’t love you the way you love me.”

“To hell with that, Kenma. To hell with those shitty categories! To hell with everything! I am going to stay with you.”

“Kuroo...”

“I’m going to get rid of this plant in my chest. We can do it, right? We’ll get past this. I will get this out, and I won’t leave you.”

“But you won’t feel a thing.”

“What we have doesn’t need the validation of feelings, Kenma. I know it’s a conscious choice for me. It is too for you, right? That’s why you didn’t leave when you realize how you really are.”

Kenma continued to crumble down. He sank on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. “Kuroo... I don’t know... I don’t know how to love again. I don’t know if I can be how you need me to... I don’t know... I don’t know...”

Kuroo couldn’t help the tears that streamed down his face as loud sobs wrecked Kenma’s small figure on the floor. The waves crashed outside, and they could no longer figure out how to love, how to remove the strip the pain from their chests.

“I’m sorry for still loving you, Kenma.”

“No. I’m sorry for no longer being able to love you back, Kuroo.”

**Author's Note:**

> if it isnt much, please drop me some love thru the comments section, please?


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